This came off the top of my head, and I'm surprised nobody has made a thread like this before. Which metal albums do you like, but everyone else seems to hate? Here's a couple of mine:

Iron Maiden's "Fear of the Dark"

The main problem with this album for many people is that there's tons of filler. I can understand this to a degree, since I though three songs off the album was forgettable, but I don't have a problem with the majority of the tracks here. If anything, most of the tracks are still good. Hence, why I consider this album the last one in Iron Maiden's classic era.

Judas Priest's "Ram It Down"

I didn't think this one was hated, but I saw some people on the Judas Priest Album Ranking thread ranking this lower than Turbo!

I mean, yes, at least one song off the album is pure glam, but the rest of the album isn't like that. Blood Red Skies in particular is one of their best songs off in the 80s, and I rank this album really high in my list for a reason.

Slayer's "Repentless"

This one was a surprise, because during the album rankings for Slayer, there were lots of people ranking this as their least favorite album. Okay, this is the last album I'm including in an album ranking thread, but while Repentless has some problems, they aren't as severe as in Diabolus in Musica or God Hates Us All. The Repentless song was one of their best in a while, and some of the riffs were great.

Deicide's "Once upon the Cross"

Strangely, a lot of people don't view this album highly compared to the band's previous two albums. While it isn't as good as self-titled or Legion, it's still a pretty good album. The instruments can still hit hard and Glen Benton's vocals still hit hard.

Bathory's "Requiem"

Bathory's thrash metal era was a weird one to say the least. While I still don't like this album, I'll admit that there are some good moments. Crosstitution in particular was one of my favorite songs off the era. Besides, I don't think we were prepared for Octagon...

And those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. What are your overhated albums?

Morgoth's Feel Sorry for the Fanatic comes to mind. People hated the thing with a passion upon release.

Metallica's Load is an obvious one. It's not bad for what it is, but the expectations after the black album and near 5 years of touring were just too big. St Anger, in the other hand, was overhyped by the band when no one actually cared about it. Musically speaking is horrible, of course.

Morbid Angel's Illud. Vincent's return after the horrendously boring Heretic built huge expectations. Trey fucked it up like he has done with everything after Gateways anyway.

Cryptopsy's The Unspoken King was hated with a passion and good reasons. Horrible vocals and songwriting.

Sepultura's Roots and Nation. Roots was the obvious move to nu metal and people were wondering there the riffs went. Nation, in the other hand, is probably the worst Sepultura album ever - maybe tied with Roorback. People hated Derrick Green with a passion and with some good reasons: his vocals has always ranged from mediocre to downright terrible. Andreas Kisser forgot how to riff until very recently.

Gorguts - Colored Sands

I seem to be one of the few people on this website that really enjoyed this album. The Oriental themes mixed with their brand of dissonant technical death metal helps it stand out amongst their impressive discography. It's admittedly not an easy listen (what Gorguts album is?), but I don't think it deserves the hate it gets.

Gojira - Magma

This album isn't on the same level as From Mars To Sirius or The Way of All Flesh, but I definitely don't see it as the steaming pile of dog shit that a lot of people think it is. Sure, it's more melodic and accessible than what they were doing before, but it definitely still sounds like Gojira and has a lot of enjoyable moments.

I'm sure I will think of more

This is a weird one. I was under the impression everyone loved Colored Sands. It's my favourite Gorguts album and I'm sure it's well liked here.

I have often this thing with Gothic/Doom/Death bands, sometimes they release an album different from their usual style and i'm the only guy that likes it.

My Dying Bride's 34.788%... Complete, Moonspell's The Butterfly Effect, the weird Pyogenesis album like Twinaleblood and Unpop..
are all pretty creative albums full of memorable songs, but often are so unorthodox and different from the starting material that are often hated upon.

Dismal Euphony's Python Zero is another album which i think i'm the only audience for. it mixes electronic effects with those thrashy, modern guitars and on top of it puts aggressive male vocals and more standard gothic metal female ones. It's often too harsh for gothic metal fans and to cheesy for thrash/death ones, so far i've only heard bad things about it.

the last incredibly underrated one, from an already madly underrated band is Mörk Gryning's Pieces of Primal expressionism: a more modern, futuristic take on their sound that is really well written and i enjoy a lot when i'm in the mood for some well produced black metal. I think only ten people heard it and they all hate it except me


That Gorguts one was pretty well received IIRC, i know a lot of people that put it alongside Obscura for the title of best one

Fear of the Dark was my first Maiden album so I have fond biased memories of it but its still a good album, got some corkers on it! I think that they went back to the sound of their first two albums with No Prayer For the Dying and Fear of the Dark. Stripped down sound, less prog and keyboards, more straight forward rockers. The hate is way over the top.

One Upon the Cross is a classic death metal album to my ears, one of the best of the 90s. I think most people think this.

Could never understand the hate for Repentless at all! Solid production and ripping songs, if anything it sees them going more aggressive than the previous couple of albums.

I think Thrash or Die riff better than most standard (IE non creative) rethrash bands. They've just got a stupid attitude, vocalist who sounds like Donald Duck, and shitty production. Definitely not worthy of being one of the lowest rated albums in the site. I'd rather listen to them than bloody Warbringer or Lich King.

I love Once Upon the Cross. Great album. The circles I was always in, people always sang its praises.

I would say in metal the most hated album of all time would be Metallica's Black Album. Although extremely loved these days, I remember early on the real thrash guys fucking despised it. I was a long hair, leather wearing thrasher back in the day and bought the album when it came out at midnight. I played it in my car, and threw the tape out the window. I thought it was complete trash, long before those who claimed they sold out came out in opposition. Luckily it has grown on me since. I can't stand Enter Sandman, but do enjoy songs like Of Wolf and Man and My Friend Misery. I take the album at face value. Its not thrash, it was meant to be radio friendly. That's fine with me these days. I wish I had the money they do. I would buy those socks at Wal Mart that are $8 a pair and stay up past 10 every night.

I'm very confused here - this album is beloved by the vast, vast majority of metal fans. Go read the reviews. I believe it won AOTY at many publications.

Dark Funeral - Attera Tottus Sanctus
A lot of people consider it the worst DF album but I like it a lot. Granted I have some deep personal reasons behind it, but still, I enjoy it just as much as their top rated albums.

Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill
It gets a lot of hate but it's the best Pantera album by a landslide IMO.

I was never a big fan myself - I thought it was too smooth and melodic for them. But yeah a lot of people love it.

Sonata Arctica - The 9th Hour

I get why people don't like Unia or Stones or Talviyo - those are pretty out-there albums. This one is a power metal album though. Slightly slower than they used to be but it's got everything people used to like about this band. But for some reason it's extremely hated.

The reason why I found OUTC to be overhated is because if you look at the reviews of the album, the rating average is 69%, which is considerably lower than the self-titled and Legion, whose ratings are 88% and 91% respectively.

That's what led me to post about Colored Sands. The 74% rating led me to think the album had mixed reception here at best, but apparently its more liked than I thought.

Black Sabbath - Never Say Die. Filled with great songs, guitar riffs and solos, and some of Ozzy's finest vocal performances. Yeah it's not ball-crushingly heavy and dark like their earlier albums, but IMO neither is Sabbath Bloody Sabbath for the most part and nobody has a problem with that album. To me Shock Wave and Air Dance are highlights of their career.

Electric Wizard - Electric Wizard. I don't understand the hate for this album. Just because it doesn't sound like Dopethrone doesn't mean it's not good stoner doom. And for some reason people generally accept and quite enjoy a good deal of EW's LATER non-Dopethrone sounding albums, but not this one. I've never been a fan of Dopethrone and this is my favorite EW album.

Metallica / Lou Reed - Lulu. This isn't even the worst Metallica album for fuck's sake (other than the obvious St. Anger, I enjoyed this more than the overly bland Death Magnetic). And it's not THAT bad. Kinda mediocre. About half the songs have good riffs. Why like 90% of the reviews here (pulling that stat out of my ass) of this album are 0% is a real mystery to me.

Black Sabbath - Forbidden. I don't know why so many Tony Martin fan boys despise this album so much. It's not great, but it's mostly decent-to-good songs. There is definitely one real stinker because of Tony Martin's vocal melody and performance during the verses, can't remember which song off the top of my head. But other than that song, not a bad album at all. Just beneath Sabbath standards. Also, Illusion of Power specifically gets way too much hate. Best song on the album. Ice-T's cameo is so short it doesn't negatively impact the song too much.

The overall score is often misleading in particular with low numbers of reviews... See albums like Alphaville: online and IRL i've heard pretty much only varying degrees of praise about it, yet here it sits barely above 50%

There is also the cool thing about forums that they create their own ecosystem of generally loved and generally hated bands, so the perception is always somewhat altered

Jugulator and Octagon, because they were so out of left field and their appeal is so different from what the bands were doing before. I think a fair few people would find things to enjoy if they approached them as their own things.

Cradle of Filth - The Manticore and Other Horrors
Granted, I can't remember what the general reception was like on release, but on this board at least, I often see it written off as a tired, half hearted, by the numbers effort (although 71% review average is respectable). I think it's a pretty good album with some killer songs. "Succumb to This" in particular absolutely rips - perhaps their best song since "Under Huntress Moon". The songs are succinct, energetic and focused, fixing the major problem the prior two albums had, where many songs meandered around aimlessly.

Fear Factory - Transgression
The faults are obvious (production, track sequence, rushed release), but the songs themselves are mostly great (especially the first half). In fact, the production gives it a cool spacey kind of vibe, so it's both a pro and a con to me.

Sepultura - early / mid Green era albums
I think Kairos seems to be the point at which a lot of people started to think the Green era isn't so bad (although Dante XXI doesn't have too bad a rep), but I trace it way back to Roorback. And the more I listen to Nation, the more I like it too, so perhaps I should stretch this back to 2001. Still can't get into Against though.

Never seen any animosity towards this record. I personally love it and it was very well received, if memory serves me well.

I actually think Ram It Down has a much too positive reception on this site. It is worse than Turbo, features more self-parody songs, is utterly directionless and is a classic band stagnating when they really shouldn't. Definitely the worst of the original run, I'd say. "Ram it Down"? Nah, turn it off!

Once Upon the Cross is fantastic, it just seems that a lot of reviewers don't see it as part of a classic trilogy, but rather a massive step down. Definitely disagree, I'd say it's the last essential Deicide album.

A few Metallica mentions so far, but I've always been dumbfounded by the level of hate Death Magnetic gets. I've never minded the production on it, but setting that aside for a second, there isn't a single bad song on the album. From a songwriting perspective, it's probably closest to Master of Puppets and could have followed either that album or AJFA. And it is much more coherent than something like Hardwired, which in my opinion is 80 minutes of an identity crisis. I'd have a really tough time taking Death Magnetic out of my top 5 Metallica albums.

Metallica/Lou Reed - Lulu.

I win!

Nothing but The Day That Never Comes stood out to me on Death Magnetic. Not like offensive or anything, just bland.

Conversely I think Hardwired is the best Metallica album probably since Justice.



I mean, I said it first, so I think I win.

I completely missed that one! Gosh darnit!

Ok, gotcha. Understand now. Legion really was kind of hard to top.

With the exception of Lulu, these albums' reputations suffer, in part, because the bands, themselves, are down on them. Jus is on record as saying that neither the producer nor the cover artist understood what the band wanted for that album. I think the album is fine, but if you are a fan of the stuff that came afterwards, (particularly "Come My Fanatics" and "Dopethrone") it sounds a bit tame. To me, it comes off as a bit of Cathedral-worship (the cover art might influence my opinion) but its better than the last two albums they've released. I think "Never Say Die" is way underrated. There are a lot of great songs, but its way different from the "classic" Ozzy-era stuff and the band was falling apart, so their view on it is obviously tainted by that. I can't really muster any love for "Forbidden", though. I own it, I put it on every few years to revist it and I think it just sounds tired. Tony Martin has been pretty upfront about stating it was just a contract obligation and it sounds like they didn't really gel with Ernie C. It just sounds tired, to me.

Yeah, agree with this one. It's a very varied and interesting album which has much stronger song writing than most people assume. I like the darker vocal tone and approach adopted by Dickinson here. The band were on absolutely stellar live form too, until Dickinson decided to quit. Also if the album was such a failure why did it go to Number 1 in loads of different countries?




Blood Red Skies is one of JP's best songs from their 80s period, but it is absolutely ruined by the drum machine. Seriously, the only record I've heard which is more affected by a terrible drum sound than this album is St. Anger. With normal sounding drums I would rate this above Turbo (albeit still not very high), as it is the drum machine/sound means this album is Priest's nadir. The desperate attempts in the lyrics to remind everyone of how the band are true 'rockers' is cringeworthy to the extreme as well.

I mean really, can't you use this same argument for everything Metallica released between The Black Album and S&M? Or was that just an American thing and other countries didn't care?

Yeah if we're using chart positions to equal quality, then nobody here can ever say anything bad about mainstream pop again either.

I don’t know anyone who *hates* Fear of the Dark. I feel like I’m representative of the fanbase on this album, in that I find it mostly bland with a couple excellent standouts. That’s not hateworthy! Maybe it’s just that Iron Maiden is such a legendary band, so the standard is higher; plus the album was (at the time) the last hurrah for the classic lineup so people wanted something better. Not being old enough to remember that time period, I don’t care about that stuff, and simply consider Fear of the Dark a subpar-but-almost-okay album.

Metallica - Load/Reload - These albums have aged very well over the last couple of decades I think. They aren't really musically comparable with the 80s glory days, but they are NOT sell out records. The band by this point had so much money and fame that they could do pretty much what the heck they liked, and that's exactly what they did. Hetfield allowed his southern rock and country inclinations to shine through here. Both albums sold millions, but they are way less commercially polished than the Black Album - they've got all sorts of oddball musical approaches going on, and on an emotional level they are way more personal. Hetfield seemed to use both records as a chance to vent some of his doubts and personal issues, and there's a brooding, confessional vibe going on that reminds one of the deeper moments of Skynyrd at times, particularly in songs like Low Man's Lyric. Finally, everyone automatically thinks because of the album titles that Reload is an outtakes album, but that's a complete myth - both records were written and recorded at the same time, but the band put them out individually rather than releasing a double album. Both albums do have too much filler scattered across them, but the high points are very high indeed, and The Outlaw Torn is one of the best songs Metallica have ever written, full stop (great Hammett solo on it). If you take the best tracks from each album and compile them on a CD then you have a record second only to Ride The Lightning in the Metallica catalogue.


Judas Priest - The Ripper Years - The song writing isn't always up to par, but both studio albums are reasonable. Jugulator has some very good moments, particularly Cathedral Spires which is in the top 3 Priest songs ever IMO, and the band take on a lot of Pantera influences for a nicely brutal reinvention of their sound. Demolition is fairly average but still has a few decent tracks. The live albums are where it's at though - I really like how downtuned and crunchy the band sound on them. Songs like Metal Gods have an extra edge of brutality added to them which they didn't have before or since, and Owens is astonishing, going to new heights vocally that even Halford didn't manage.


Iron Maiden - The X Factor/VXI - I think the X Factor is one of Maiden's best albums. The guitars are a little underpowered in the mix, but the gloomy and sombre atmosphere on the album and the dark, brooding lyrics make for a very cathartic listening experience. One of the very few albums that I can listen to for emotional release when feeling depressed (mostly I just don't listen to music at all when in that state of mind). Sign Of The Cross is Maiden's best song too. VXI isn't as good - thin production, sounds and looks cheap and rushed, with some filler on it, but still has enough highlights to make it worthwhile.

Interesting choices, I'll respond:

1) NSD is a mess, TBH. The drugs were outweighing the song writing heavily by this point, and it shows. Side 2 in particular verges on woeful. It's not the worst album ever made but it's definitely the weakest thing put out under the Sabbath name pre 1984.

2) I didn't realise Electric Wizard's debut was disregarded that much. I agree that it's a pretty decent record, although the band's sound massively shifted afterwards, so it's quite a contrast going from this to Come My Fanatics/Dopethrone. A lot of people seem to have regarded Let Us Prey as being a letdown as well, but I rather like that album, some weird shit going on there, even though it's not their best one, and Priestess Of Mars is one of their all time great songs.

3) Yeah, agree on this. I don't think Lulu is good, but I don't think it's that bad either. It's more of a curio than anything else, with some interesting moments that work (Iced Honey) and a lot that... don't. But at worst it's just something I'll listen to once and not bother about again. I don't get how some people think it's worse than St. Anger (an album which is genuinely unlistenable). Also, some people seemed to be surprised that it wasn't what they expected. I mean this is Lou Reed they collaborated with, a man who once released a double album of feedback. It was pretty obvious it was going to be an oddball release.

4) I don't think much of the Martin era Sabbath albums - most of which are basically Iommi solo records with the Sabbath name slapped on them. But I agree that Forbidden isn't notably much worse than the albums before it in this regard. Some good riffs here and there still.

I'm surprised to see people mentioning hating on Fear of the Dark. The first time I saw it mentioned was in a crappy "Top ten worst metal albums of the decade" years ago, almost all picks were terrible (and limited to mainstream stuff, IIRC), and most commenters disagreed on that one. Today's the second time I see people include it in "hated" or "worst" list. It's the weakest of the classics, IMO, but it is still a great album. Fear of the Dark (the song) and Afraid to shoot strangers are in my top 10 Iron Maiden songs.

Mini Lulu rant:

I've never got the assertion that these albums are alternative rock. I pretty much only know the Guns N Roses that's played on the radio, but when I hear Civil War it sounds like a sound/style that could've influenced these albums. These albums sometimes reminds me of early Danzig too. Tell me Bleeding Me was not directly inspired by Danzig's Little Whip.

The average review score for this record is pretty decent on MA, and I don't remember reading overwhelmingly negative opinions on it in the forum. Sure there are negative reviews, but generally speaking, people seemd to like it or feel indifferent about it. I think it's a pretty decent album. I do not love it quite as much as their first two, but it's far from a bad album if you ask me.

I feel like Cradle of Filth's "Thornography" is overhated. It's definitely not their best album, that much is certain, but I think about half of it's worth listening to. More of a mixed bag than outright bad.

I also remember the reception to "Ghost Opera" by Kamelot being very polarized at the time, but I think it's pretty good for the most part. Just not as good as "The Black Halo", which was as perfect as symphonic/power metal can get. "Poetry for the Poisoned" got a worse reception than GH did and I liked that one too.

Fuck The Black Halo to hell for all eternity for my not being able to find a motherfucking copy that plays in my motherfucking computer CD/DVD drive. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with the way this stupid fucking disc was manufactured that multiple copies don't have much scuffs but refuse to even be read in my CD/DVD drive but play fine in my car CD player. I've only ever owned one other CD that did that (Fuzz - II).

I don't really follow Kamelot's career, but I always thought that was a loved album. I bought it after reading some good commentaries and it kinda formed my idea of what to expect from Kamelot, who I didn't know before. I still play it once in a while.

I never understood why Never Say Die got so much hate. Sure it's not perfect, but it's a decent album, and quite a bit better than the album that came before it that actually does suck - Technical Ecstasy.

Technical Ecstasy has two absolute classics on it in You Won't Change Me and Dirty Women. NSD doesn't have anything really on the level of those two songs.

I used to think Technical Ecstasy sucked, but I've warmed up to it a bit. I like Backstreet Kids, You Won't Change Me, Gypsy, She's Gone, and Dirty Women. Rock n Roll Doctor isn't necessarily great but its chorus is.

Definitely agree it's weaker than Never Say Die though. That's the most puzzling thing to me. Most people who hate/don't like those two albums always seem to think Never Say Die is the worse of the two, and I just don't know why. Absolutely disagree with the poster above who said it was a mess.